FDR & Churchill

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

FDR and Winston Churchill spent 113 days in each others' company during WWII. FDR even saw Churchill naked. But how close were the pair in personality and in strategy? How did the personal relationship between these two giants of history shape the war? And why, in the end, did Churchill see it as a failure?

Dan Snow, of our sister podcast 'Dan Snow's History Hit', joins Don to talk about the most 'Special Relationship' of all.

Produced by Freddy Chick. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	December 24, 1943.
0:05.1	Once more, we find President Franklin D. Roosevelt seated at his microphone.
0:10.1	As we heard last week, the president had been meeting with allied leaders across Europe and beyond.
0:15.3	Among them was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, his steadfast partner in the war effort.
0:21.6	Churchill had been laid low by a fever for six days earlier in December,
0:25.6	but the conferences proceeded as planned and were deemed a success.
0:29.6	The special relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill,
0:33.4	forged in the crucible of war, had been reaffirmed,
0:37.0	setting the stage for their continued collaboration
0:39.1	in the fight against tyranny. Of course, as you all know, Mr. Churchill and I have happily met
0:47.9	many times before, and we know and understand each other very well. Indeed, Mr. Churchill has become known and beloved
0:56.8	by many millions of Americans
0:59.1	and the heartfelt prayers of all of us
1:02.1	have been with this great citizen of the world
1:05.2	in his recent serious illness.
1:07.6	The United States serious illness. ... Greetings all, welcome to American history hit. I'm Don Wildman. The superlatives used to
1:39.7	describe the British leader Winston Churchill, indomitable, resolute, tenacious, defender of the empire,
1:47.3	are often followed by disparaging ones, arrogant, imperious, warmonger, autocrat.
1:53.8	It's a regular facet of the great figures of history, two sides of the same coin.
1:57.8	But Churchill, who intersected with world events as if destiny had his number,
2:02.8	required these contradictory traits, certainly as the Second World War became inevitable.
2:08.3	Without Churchill, there is no answer to Hitler. The British appease and don't fight.
	...

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